Leming, Earl

ORAL HISTORY OF EARL LEMING
Interviewed by Keith McDaniel
January 20, 2012
MR. MCDANIEL: This is Keith McDaniel, and today is January the 20th, 2012, and I am speaking to Mr. Earl Leming. And we are at the TDEC [Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation] office here in Oak Ridge, on Emory Valley Road. Mr. Leming, thanks for taking time to speak to me.
MR. LEMING: It's my pleasure.
MR. MCDANIEL: First of all, why are we at the TDEC office?
MR. LEMING: Well, that's a long story in terms of - we were going to do it at home.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. And you've had some construction work.
MR. LEMING: Right. The hailstorms basically started a long process of replacing the roof, and as the roof was replaced, more damage was found. The windows were leaking, and then -
MR. MCDANIEL: It has just continued on, hasn't it?
MR. LEMING: It's continued on, and probably will into the spring.
MR. MCDANIEL: But we are here at this office because...?
MR. LEMING: This is basically the office that I set up or was responsible for working on.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, good. Well, we'll get to that here in a little bit there.
MR. LEMING: All right.
MR. MCDANIEL: But let's start out with where you were born and raised and something about your family.
MR. LEMING: I was born in Greene County, Tennessee, which is about 70 to 80 miles from Oak Ridge, in a farm. Basically born and raised on a farm. Educated in the Greeneville school systems through high school.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. Now, was your father a farmer, or did he do that part-time?
MR. LEMING: He was both a farmer and in the tobacco warehouse business.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. LEMING: And my mother was a nurse, and she was a baby nurse for years and years and years, and most of the newborns in her generation were - she was very responsible for them.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right? Is that right?
MR. LEMING: And I'm the last of seven siblings.
MR. MCDANIEL: Seven children.
MR. LEMING: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. And I guess you all worked on the farm, didn't you?
MR. LEMING: We all worked on the farm.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, you grew up in Greeneville, or in Greene County, I guess.
MR. LEMING: Right.
MR. MCDANIEL: Were you in Greene - I guess, you were out in the county a little bit.
MR. LEMING: Actually, we were in the county, but only about a mile from the town, downtown Greeneville.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. LEMING: So, it was a farm that was very close to town.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right, so you could walk into town easy enough, couldn't you?
MR. LEMING: Walk to town, walk from school.
MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, sure, sure. So, what year did you graduate high school?
MR. LEMING: 1957.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, graduated in 1957, the year I was born. [Laughter] So, you graduated high school in '57, from Greeneville High School?
MR. LEMING: Right.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. And did you go to college after that?
MR. LEMING: Went to Memphis State, which is now the University of Memphis, and chose it because it had flatlands rather than going to UT, which was hills.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughter] You had enough walking, didn't you? Walking up and down mountains and hills.
MR. LEMING: Also, I had a brother that had just graduated from med school there, so there was a draw.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, did all your other siblings go to college?
MR. LEMING: Some did and some didn't.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. So, you went to the University of Memphis, I guess.
MR. LEMING: Right.
MR. MCDANIEL: It's University of Memphis now. And what did you study? What were you interested in?
MR. LEMING: I basically started pre-med, but eventually moved into straight biology and microbiology, and basically that's what my two degrees were in.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right? Biology and microbiology, did you say?
MR. LEMING: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. What made you interested in that?
MR. LEMING: Essentially, I just had a knack for it.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, really?
MR. LEMING: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: One of those things where it was easy for you?
MR. LEMING: Grew up outdoors. As a kid, I spent a lot of time on the creeks and the rivers and the springs, so it was just natural.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, for those of us who may not know - I think most people would know what biology is, the study of biology, but what is the study of microbiology?
MR. LEMING: Microbiology was primarily looking at the bacteria, the protozoa, what was under the scope, so to speak.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, I see. I see. I see. So, you went there to the University of Memphis, and you got two degrees, did you say?
MR. LEMING: Mm-hmm.
MR. MCDANIEL: How long were you there?
MR. LEMING: I was in Memphis from - essentially started there in '57 and left there in 1968.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. All right. And did you get married while you were there, and start a family?
MR. LEMING: I got married, started a family, and essentially both my children were born in Memphis.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, when you graduated, now, did you get a job right away, and where was that?
MR. LEMING: That was just sort of by luck. I knocked on the door at the Memphis and Shelby County Health Department, and they needed an inspector. So they were hiring, and they offered the job, so I took it.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? So what did that job entail?
MR. LEMING: That was basically the first barbershop inspector for a health department.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. LEMING: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: So you'd go into a barbershop and inspect them -
MR. LEMING: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: - for the health purposes.
MR. LEMING: Right.
MR. MCDANIEL: What were some of the things that you found?
MR. LEMING: Well, some of the things you wouldn't want to find.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughter] I'm sure. I'm sure.
MR. LEMING: But it was basically the typical items of dirty linen, dirty neck brushes, and a lot more that you wouldn't want to talk about.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. Now, were there certain regulations and guidelines - I guess there were - set up for that?
MR. LEMING: They were very vague and not prescriptive, because in most cases barbershops weren't inspected by Health Departments.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, really?
MR. LEMING: They were under a separate program for the city and county, but not a part of the Health Department. So, there was another sort of a program development of developing an inspection program for barbershops.
MR. MCDANIEL: You probably weren't real popular in the barbershop, were you?
MR. LEMING: Not really.
MR. MCDANIEL: Did you ever have any trouble?
MR. LEMING: Maybe a few unhappy people from time to time, but in reality, like most folks, if you approach them right, they'll respond right.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. Now, how long did you keep that job?
MR. LEMING: Basically, probably less than a year, and moved on into the area of what was then a vague area of environment.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. That was in, what, the late '60s, I guess.
MR. LEMING: The late '60s. And that area's looking at - there were very few water-quality laws or air-pollution laws or solid-waste laws. So, I became sort of a technical specialist in that area for the Health Department.
MR. MCDANIEL: In Memphis.
MR. LEMING: Mm-hmm.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, was this the city or the county?
MR. LEMING: This was city and county.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, city and county.
MR. LEMING: It was unique in that their programs were more focused on public health type of activities, and environmental activities were sort of way down the list.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right, right. But about that time is when those things were starting to come along, weren't they?
MR. LEMING: Slowly starting to come along in the late '60s. Probably the Rachel Carson book, Silent Spring, was one of the things that helped to drive the environmental program. And then Memphis had its shares of problems in terms of, at that time, you didn't have sanitary landfills; you had dumps. And you didn't have sewage treatment; you had direct discharges to the Mississippi River.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, really? Okay.
MR. LEMING: And so the entire city of Memphis, for example, had no sewage treatment. It had -
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. LEMING: - basically direct lines.
MR. MCDANIEL: Discharge. Now, was that common? I mean, was sewage treatment common at that point in time in our history?
MR. LEMING: It was common from the standpoint of smaller streams. Essentially, the aspects that might - in terms of sewage treatment would've been common in terms of collecting and removing the solids and chlorinating the liquids, but beyond that point there was very little of it.
MR. MCDANIEL: And Memphis even then was a big city.
MR. LEMING: It was well over a half a million people. They had the Mississippi River, so dilution was the solution.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. Exactly. Exactly.
MR. LEMING: And there were some drivers, like the industrial discharges. Essentially, we worked on the fish kill. It extended all the way to New Orleans and basically developed in Memphis.
MR. MCDANIEL: Really?
MR. LEMING: The endrin pesticides were being manufactured there and discharged through the sewer lines and ended up in the fish flesh.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, my.
MR. LEMING: And then another probably fairly significant one was the Velsicol - again, the endrin waste that ended up in most of the landfills there in Memphis. There was a strong focus in Memphis on groundwater, though.
MR. MCDANIEL: There was?
MR. LEMING: Because Memphis essentially derived all of its potable water supply from groundwater, and still does today.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. Now, so how long did you stay in Memphis?
MR. LEMING: Was in Memphis until 1968 and then moved to Knoxville with the state.
MR. MCDANIEL: So you took a job in Knoxville in '68 with the state of Tennessee.
MR. LEMING: Mm-hmm.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. What was that position?
MR. LEMING: I was a biologist.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. LEMING: And essentially, we opened the first office in East Tennessee of two people, which covered all of East Tennessee.
MR. MCDANIEL: And what were some of the things that you did as a biologist for the state? What were the things that you did?
MR. LEMING: Typically a biologist was primarily looking at how healthy the streams were. I always sort of had a different approach because my master's degree focused on industrial discharges and sewage discharges, so not only as being - we had some real good biologists that could do more taxonomy, so I focused on basically walking the streams and finding point source discharges. And it wasn't difficult to find them.
MR. MCDANIEL: I'm sure it wasn't. I'm sure it wasn't. People didn't hide things back then like they do now, did they?
MR. LEMING: Well, basically that's the way you did things.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure, sure. And I'm sure you enjoyed that. I mean, you're a young man, and you grew up in the outdoors, and you got to spend time outdoors.
MR. LEMING: Right.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. Sure. So you lived in Knoxville. Where did you live in Knoxville?
MR. LEMING: Lived in Knoxville for about a year, then moved to Blount County, and basically lived pretty close to the same location ever since.
MR. MCDANIEL: Ever since. Ever since.
MR. LEMING: It's close to the water, near a little river.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. Now, how did you end up in Oak Ridge?
MR. LEMING: That's an interesting story.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, tell me that story.
MR. LEMING: Essentially, my first visit to Oak Ridge was probably in the late '60s or early '70s, and it was just as part of my job. And first visit to visit with the Department of Energy folk was to see what we could find out about the Oak Ridge Reservation. Didn't find out too much.
MR. MCDANIEL: What did they say to you?
MR. LEMING: Basically they said, "Thank you for coming."
MR. MCDANIEL: "But this is a federal -"
MR. LEMING: "This is a federal facility. Your boss in Nashville knows everything there is to know about it," and that was it.
MR. MCDANIEL: That was it?
MR. LEMING: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, how did that change? Or did it?
MR. LEMING: It didn't change for a number of years.
MR. MCDANIEL: Did it not?
MR. LEMING: No. Essentially, that was basically in the early '60s, and then starting basically in the '70s, we were obligated under the state laws to classify streams according to their uses. So, the streams on the Oak Ridge Reservation were a part of that stream-use classification requirement, and that's probably the next round of activities we had with the Department of Energy. And essentially, streams like the East Fork Poplar Creek were classified, and the Poplar Creek and the mountain valley streams.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. But they flowed out of the reservation.
MR. LEMING: But our approach, the state's approach, was that you went to the headwaters. And so, it didn't matter where they flowed to; it was where they flowed from, where you started, in terms of protecting that use. So, essentially, that put DOE on notice that their streams had a classified use, and we worked with them in terms of some uses because, essentially, most of their streams weren't suitable for public water supplies. But all of them were suitable for fish and aquatic life, and basically, some weren't suitable for recreation, but some were suitable for industrial use.
MR. MCDANIEL: What would've made them not suitable, specifically? From just the work from Oak Ridge?
MR. LEMING: Well, in most cases the approach was if you had a discharge below a sewage treatment plant, and then even though you had chlorination and all that, it wouldn't be suitable for swimming or recreational use. But it had to be protected for fish and aquatic life.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure, I understand. I understand. So, that kind of all started again in the '70s.
MR. LEMING: Right.
MR. MCDANIEL: It really started in the '70s, and the state of Tennessee coming in to evaluate, I suppose, the streams and rivers and things such as that, on the Oak Ridge Reservation.
MR. LEMING: Really didn't get to come in and evaluate them closely.
MR. MCDANIEL: Really? Okay.
MR. LEMING: Again, we still hadn't crossed that fence. The state was essentially on the outside looking in, and DOE was on the inside looking out.
MR. MCDANIEL: And that was kind of a political issue at that point, wasn't it?
MR. LEMING: It was more of a state/federal - the issue of sovereign immunity between state and local governments, and it wasn't just DOE. It was TVA. It was the Army. We saw it in a number of locations where we dealt with either TVA or the Army, in terms of their reservations up at Kingsport.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. I understand.
MR. LEMING: So it was just a part of -
MR. MCDANIEL: Part of the way it was. That was just -
MR. LEMING: Yeah, it was the way it was.
MR. MCDANIEL: - the way it was, yeah.
MR. LEMING: And that was basically a product of the war years and the post-war years, and it hadn't changed. So, as the laws became more specific, then the Clean Water Act started to develop in the '70s. Then that became more of an issue between states and federal facilities.
MR. MCDANIEL: So when did that change? I mean, when did that change?
MR. LEMING: It began to change, obviously, when DOE, through the mercury releases and the revelation of the mercury releases - and that was in the '70s. And the revelations that DOE, basically, held back information from both the public and from the regulators.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly.
MR. LEMING: And then the lawsuit between LEAF, a lawyer by the name of Gary Davis, who filed suit in federal court, and Judge Taylor in Knoxville - Judge Taylor made a very significant ruling that DOE was subject primarily to RCRA, the Resource Conservation Recovery Act. And that pretty well opened the door.
MR. MCDANIEL: Did it? What year was that, do you remember? Or about what year?
MR. LEMING: That would've been the -
MR. MCDANIEL: '80s?
MR. LEMING: - early '80s.
MR. MCDANIEL: Early '80s.
MR. LEMING: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right, right. So there was a lawsuit filed, and Judge Taylor, a federal judge in Knoxville, ruled that the DOE reservation here in Oak Ridge was subject to the - was it a federal law or a state law?
MR. LEMING: It was a federal law -
MR. MCDANIEL: Federal law.
MR. LEMING: - the Resource Conservation Recovery Act. And that was primarily dealing with hazardous-waste regulations. But that also pretty well opened the door on all the other state/federal relationships, because it set the precedent that DOE was subject to state and federal regulations other than self-regulation.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. So, at that point, once that happened, were you able to come in and have good access to the reservation?
MR. LEMING: We had access, but not good access. Again, when you have national security as an issue, and the need for security clearance that wasn't available.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure, I understand.
MR. LEMING: And so, you could get access for a certain amount of work.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. Certain places, you know -
MR. LEMING: You could go certain places. You could go to those wastewater treatment facilities that were well known and had been reviewed or permitted by the state, but you still couldn't get all the information you needed. You couldn't get in if they had a spill. It would take quite a while to get -
MR. MCDANIEL: As they say, an act of Congress for that to happen, wouldn't it?
MR. LEMING: You stood outside the gate for a long time.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. LEMING: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, once you were able to get into Oak Ridge and - I'm just asking. I don't have an axe to grind one way or the other. But once you were able to get into Oak Ridge - I suppose that this was after the information was released to the public that DOE had been - that there was a spill, and that they'd been holding information back from the public and from the regulators. And you came in and started doing inspections. Did you find anything else that was kind of unusual, or that came to the public eye?
MR. LEMING: Well, there were many, many things that came to the public eye, from the standpoint of issues that weren't what you would normally expect. For example, the S3 ponds at Y-12, which were essentially -
MR. MCDANIEL: Those were kind a holding ponds, right?
MR. LEMING: They were holding ponds. Right.
MR. MCDANIEL: For nuclear waste.
MR. LEMING: Not so much nuclear -
MR. MCDANIEL: Or chemical waste.
MR. LEMING: Chemical waste.
MR. MCDANIEL: Chemical waste, excuse me.
MR. LEMING: Right.
MR. MCDANIEL: And they had leached out, hadn't they?
MR. LEMING: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that what had happened?
MR. LEMING: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. Into the water -
MR. LEMING: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: - supply or the creeks, I suppose.
MR. LEMING: That's pretty well correct.
MR. MCDANIEL: And did you all find that, or is that something that just came that they just were forced to admit?
MR. LEMING: No. Basically it was obvious, but it wasn't on the list, so to speak.
MR. MCDANIEL: I understand.
MR. LEMING: And then issues like the - and in their landfills when they would have buried uranium chips that would ignite if they were exposed to air, and those were small air releases or major air releases. And so a lot of revelations, but it took many, many years to develop and identify all of those. And we didn't identify them all, and DOE and their contractors helped us identify them.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. I suppose they got - my understanding is, around the mid-'80s they kind of opened - DOE opened the door a little bit wider for transparency of those kinds of things. Is that an accurate statement?
MR. LEMING: In the mid-'80s, essentially I came back as a project coordinator, because DOE essentially had been identified as a major source in a lot of problems, and essentially it needed a lot more attention than each of our various regulatory divisions independently could give to it. So I had just spent two years in surface mining and came over as a project coordinator for the DOE project.
MR. MCDANIEL: I understand. Now, was that when this office was established?
MR. LEMING: No. No, essentially from '85 until '91 this office didn't exist.
MR. MCDANIEL: This office didn't exist.
MR. LEMING: And that was a period where I worked as sort of a focal point with DOE, and in the various regulatory divisions within the state, and sort of as a receiving point for all the paperwork that DOE and their contractors could put forth, which was mountains of it.
MR. MCDANIEL: I'm sure it was.
MR. LEMING: And I was, at that time, still at my offices in Knoxville.
MR. MCDANIEL: But you said from '85 to '91, did you say?
MR. LEMING: Mm-hmm.
MR. MCDANIEL: '85 to '91. Were they pretty open with things, or still kind of holding things -
MR. LEMING: No.
MR. MCDANIEL: - close to the vest?
MR. LEMING: Well, in most cases, they were becoming more open.
MR. MCDANIEL: They'd done certain things the same way for 40 years. It's a little hard to change, isn't it?
MR. LEMING: Yeah, you don't really - and I don't fault - it was, again, a way of life. So there were issues that we would identify, and it would take time to drag out the information. But I'd have to say, from the standpoint of management of DOE, we were getting a lot of good cooperation.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? Okay.
MR. LEMING: And from the standpoint of the contractors. But anything that was classified or - that was more difficult to get.
MR. MCDANIEL: Did they hide behind that classification sometimes?
MR. LEMING: In many cases, yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: In many cases, yes.
MR. LEMING: It was easier to put a mistake in a classified document than it was to report it.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure, exactly.
MR. LEMING: But to their credit, they began reporting a lot more stuff - problems like hydrofracture, which, basically, in the deep well injection of radioactive materials, they had developed a lot of problems with it, and made some several mistakes. It took a lot of digging from the standpoint of finding the real paperwork.
MR. MCDANIEL: I guess people thought if something was 1,000 feet under the ground -
MR. LEMING: It was safe.
MR. MCDANIEL: - it was safe.
MR. LEMING: Well, I think they did, too, from their standpoint, but they also knew that they had made some mistakes.
MR. MCDANIEL: Let me ask you a question, because in an interview I did a couple of years ago, a fella who was pretty familiar with hydrofracture, he made the comment: hydrofracture is going to be something that's going to bite them in the butt in about 30 or 35 years. Do you think that's an issue? Do you think it's still an issue, or you think most of that's been resolved?
MR. LEMING: It's still an issue from the standpoint we know that the liquids are still down there, because when they were put down, they weren't solidified.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. And for people that don't understand, hydrofracture is when, in my understanding - and you can correct me if I'm wrong, of course - but this waste, this liquid waste was mixed with concrete and then injected down into the plates of the earth -
MR. LEMING: Right.
MR. MCDANIEL: - as much as 1,000 feet down, and it kind of spread out, right?
MR. LEMING: Mm-hmm.
MR. MCDANIEL: And they thought that, well, the concrete would set up, and that would be it, right?
MR. LEMING: Right.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. LEMING: But unfortunately they breached that depth, and it came out at a much higher elevation than where they hoped it would go.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly. Exactly.
MR. LEMING: And so it will be something that they will have to continue to monitor and watch for, for many, many years.
MR. MCDANIEL: Exactly. But that was just one example of some of the things that -
MR. LEMING: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: I'm sure there are -
MR. LEMING: Well, you could go on with a long list, but I think you have to look at the positive side of it too.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right, exactly.
MR. LEMING: Between the '80s - or after '85, we began the process of characterization, sampling, and reporting. And interesting story about security clearance. I didn't have a security clearance, and so in most cases, I always had to have an escort to take me in. They were very good about getting me where I needed to go. But on one occasion, I was at K-25. I had one meeting with a group of people and then was scheduled with another meeting, but they didn't meet up together, so the first group had to put me out and put me back outside the gate and left me waiting there. The second group didn't show up, and it was probably about 30 degrees outside that gate.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, they left you out in the cold, literally. That was a metaphor for your life, for your relationship with -
MR. LEMING: Right.
MR. MCDANIEL: - DOE, wasn't it?
MR. LEMING: That brought about a strong push on my part for security clearance.
MR. MCDANIEL: Did that happen?
MR. LEMING: That happened.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, well, good.
MR. LEMING: And it was basically one of the fastest security clearances that they could still do.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. Now, when did that happen? Was that when - who was the general manager at that time? Who was ORO manager? Joe?
MR. LEMING: That would be Joe LaGrone.
MR. MCDANIEL: Joe LaGrone, right.
MR. LEMING: Joe LaGrone was - he was probably one of the most cooperative.
MR. MCDANIEL: I interviewed him, oh, three, four months ago, and he talked quite a bit about especially that period in the mid-'80s when he tried to open up and make it as transparent as possible.
MR. LEMING: He did, and I'll give him a great deal of credit for that effort.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure, exactly. So when was this office established in Oak Ridge?
MR. LEMING: Between '85 and '91 we essentially begin working with DOE, and a few things happened: the FBI raid on Rocky Flats, which again brought a lot of issues to DOE.
MR. MCDANIEL: Tell me just in a minute or two what - so if people don't know what that is, tell me what that was.
MR. LEMING: Essentially, that was the contractor not doing their job and failing to report problems both to DOE and to the state of Colorado, and essentially it was hiding information. So, the FBI just raided the facility and literally closed it down.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. LEMING: And that caused the DOE to start working on some type of agreement with Colorado, and that perked everybody's ears up, in terms of are there agreements out there and who's going to fund those agreements.
MR. MCDANIEL: Of course.
MR. LEMING: So, the agreements process started with practically all of those states that were host to DOE facilities, like Washington state, Colorado, New Mexico -
MR. MCDANIEL: New Mexico, right.
MR. LEMING: - South Carolina, Tennessee, Ohio. And so that's basically how we began the process of developing an oversight agreement, which took us about a year and a half to finally come up with an agreement. And this division itself was basically a multimedia division, which had components of all of the divisions in Nashville that regulated DOE.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right? I see.
MR. LEMING: So we had water quality. We had air pollution, radiological health, solid waste, hazardous waste.
MR. MCDANIEL: So this office opened as a result of that; is that correct?
MR. LEMING: Right.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. And who funded it? Was it funded by DOE?
MR. LEMING: It was funded by DOE out of three grants, and one was essentially the oversight agreement. The second was an agreement for CERCLA; that funded our CERCLA activities, our Superfund. And then the third was an agreement for emergency management to do emergency response, and we also included public participation in there for the local governments. And all that funding basically was handled through this office but went out - but it was -
MR. MCDANIEL: But it was funded to the state.
MR. LEMING: To the state.
MR. MCDANIEL: So the state could run this office, right?
MR. LEMING: Right, yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: So there would be some kind of separation.
MR. LEMING: Right.
MR. MCDANIEL: I mean, you wouldn't want the wolf watching the henhouse.
MR. LEMING: No. No, there was speculation, "How can you take funding from somebody you're watching?"
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right, I'm sure of that.
MR. LEMING: I just said -
MR. MCDANIEL: You'd say, "Pretty easy, as a matter of fact." [Laughter] So at this point, when this office was opened, what was your position?
MR. LEMING: I became Director.
MR. MCDANIEL: Director.
MR. LEMING: And it's the first office that was ever opened that had a director outside of Nashville.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, really? Okay.
MR. LEMING: Which is - I'll consider that as a unique recognition.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. Now, were there other sites in Tennessee that this office dealt with? Or was it just the Oak Ridge Reservation?
MR. LEMING: Just the Oak Ridge Reservation.
MR. MCDANIEL: Just the Oak Ridge Reservation.
MR. LEMING: Now, we did work with our sister divisions on offsite contamination by DOE, like the Witherspoon site over in Knoxville, where DOE had sold or released contaminated material, so anything offsite in the city of Oak Ridge we worked with.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. About when - we've heard a lot about the mercury, and we've heard a lot about the East Fork Poplar Creek. Did that all come about I guess in the late '70s when that Public Information Act -
MR. LEMING: Essentially it was the early '80s.
MR. MCDANIEL: Early '80s, right.
MR. LEMING: Yeah, it was basically when DOE basically revealed that they had released the mercury.
MR. MCDANIEL: And that was when they had the - as a result of that was when Senator Gore and Marilyn Lloyd, they held the hearings at AMSE, I suppose.
MR. LEMING: That's right, yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. That was quite the to-do, wasn't it?
MR. LEMING: Well, it was, except I missed it all.
MR. MCDANIEL: You did?
MR. LEMING: When the report of the mercury release came in, that was the day that I was reassigned to surface mining.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. LEMING: So, I had went to surface mining in all the period that involved the mercury release.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, really?
MR. LEMING: Yeah. I got the call. I received the call from DOE that they had released it, but then I didn't get to -
MR. MCDANIEL: You didn't get to follow up on that, did you?
MR. LEMING: No. So I didn't. I had my own troubles in surface mining.
MR. MCDANIEL: I'm sure. And you were still working out of the Knoxville office -
MR. LEMING: Right.
MR. MCDANIEL: - at that point. So in the '90s, you all opened this office. The state opened this office. That was funded through those three funding areas.
MR. LEMING: Right.
MR. MCDANIEL: And basically you had all the areas, like you said, all the areas you were monitoring.
MR. LEMING: Right.
MR. MCDANIEL: The water, the air - all those issues. So has that continued?
MR. LEMING: That's continued essentially through today. And the '90s were basically a period where, obviously, we had to create a staff, educate a staff. And with state salaries, that was a super challenge of recruiting talent that could compete and talk to the folks at the lab.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, yeah. You needed smart people.
MR. LEMING: I never considered myself an expert.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughter] Right. So when did you retire?
MR. LEMING: I retired in 2001.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, 2001.
MR. LEMING: So my history with dealing with DOE really runs from essentially the late '60s through 2001.
MR. MCDANIEL: So you had a lot of years. I mean, as you said, you dealt with DOE a lot of years, and you dealt with Oak Ridge for a long time as well.
MR. LEMING: Mm-hmm.
MR. MCDANIEL: Your personal impressions - I want to hear some of those. What do you personally think - as someone who saw all the issues, that saw all the changes, what's your kind of overall impression of Oak Ridge and the environment, from maybe some of the early days through today and kind of where you think things stand today?
MR. LEMING: Well, from the standpoint of Oak Ridge as a community, basically I have a great deal of respect for it and appreciation for it because when I first opened the office, I lived in Oak Ridge.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, did you?
MR. LEMING: For a short time. Then I remarried and moved right back on most of the same spot that -
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. LEMING: But I had great appreciation for the people that I worked with in Oak Ridge. Having come from dealing with surface mining, it was a lot more comfortable, pleasant job even though it was a challenging job. And I enjoyed the challenge, and I enjoyed seeing things change and making improvements. I guess you would characterize it as, as fast as a Cadillac in a Grindstone.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, exactly.
MR. LEMING: But working with the community of Oak Ridge and the public participation, I got to know the people very well. They didn't always agree with me; I didn't always agree with them. But I got a lot of good advice from them.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, you know - and I don't mean to interrupt you there, but I guess one of the things about Oak Ridge is that generally the public leaders, they were people from the plants. I mean, these were educated folks. These weren't - so they may have had a knowledge base that was unusual for especially public leadership in the city too. Would you agree with that?
MR. LEMING: I would agree with that from the standpoint - they had a great deal of dependence on Y-12 and the labs. And I'll give you one example of today, and that's the Oak Ridge sewage treatment plant. When you look at East Fork Poplar Creek, East Fork Poplar Creek before Y-12 was there was probably just a spring branch: very low flow and very little water, maybe a million or so gallons or less. In turn, the City of Oak Ridge sewage treatment plant also discharges into East Fork Poplar Creek. But then the water that comes into East Fork Poplar Creek down through the plant is basically an artificial level of water because it's pumped through. And that has caused interdependency between Y-12 and the City of Oak Ridge. Probably the City of Oak Ridge, if it weren't for the water that was being pumped through, would have to go to a very much higher level of treatment than it is today.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, because the more water, the less treatment required.
MR. LEMING: Right. And that was true even back in the days of the '70s, when both DOE and the City of Oak Ridge folks were complaining that "Don't be too strict on East Fork Poplar Creek, because that's the problem." But all in all, when you look back, you look back at - DOE wasn't much different than every other industry or Oak Ridge wasn't much different from any other municipality in the '50s, '60s, and '70s.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. It was an industrial town.
MR. LEMING: And they slowly had to be reeducated and brought into what we would call the regulatory world, and reeducated as to what good environmental protection meant to the community, how it benefited the community. And I believe that's basically how I would characterize Oak Ridge.
MR. MCDANIEL: And today, what do you think? I mean, are there still issues that need to be addressed? I mean, do you think things are pretty well under control?
MR. LEMING: Well, things are under control, but from the standpoint of looking in the long run, when you look at the Oak Ridge Reservation, you have to look at long-term stewardship and perpetual institutional controls, and you have to look at funding and who's going to be around here or who's going to be responsible. And when you cap a site and leave some contamination there, how do you make sure that, 100 years from now, or 50 years from now, or 25 years from now, somebody doesn't dig into that site? So those are the things that Oak Ridge is gonna have challenges on: how they move into the future and continue what I call the proper institutional controls and the maintenance of funding for those institutional controls.
MR. MCDANIEL: 'Cause no matter how hard you try, some things just can't be -
MR. LEMING: Right.
MR. MCDANIEL: - undone, can they?
MR. LEMING: No, and it's going to take full-time monitoring and surveillance. Unfortunately, somebody's going to have to do the work and pay for it.
MR. MCDANIEL: And pay for it, right. Exactly. Exactly. Well, good. Well, is there anything else you want to talk about? Anything?
MR. LEMING: No, I don't -
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, one other thing I wanted to ask you about. One of the things living in Oak Ridge - I've seen it, and other people have seen it, and you have it just about in every community - is, you have people who are very, very vocal environmental conservationists. Did you ever have - what were your issues with the local environmental contingent in the community?
MR. LEMING: Essentially, from the standpoint - when you're a regulator, you're in the middle, and you're going to take fire from both directions. And essentially, you look at it and you look at the regulations. You try to balance those regulations. You can't satisfy everybody. And if both of them are fussing at you, you've probably done a pretty good job.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughter] And a lot of times you don't satisfy anybody, do you?
MR. LEMING: No. But fortunately, in working with the extreme groups - again, they didn't always agree, but we certainly listened and we tried to satisfy their issues as well.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. Sure, I understand. But you don't think that it was any different in Oak Ridge than maybe it would've been any other place?
MR. LEMING: No, it wasn't. An example is, when I was doing Bumpass Cove Superfund site up near Erwin, those local people would like to beat me to death.
MR. MCDANIEL: I'm sure.
MR. LEMING: But a different type of community altogether.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. And they're still beating it to death up there, aren't they?
MR. LEMING: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughter] But different communities have different personalities, I suppose. And Oak Ridge was Oak Ridge because of the federal government, because of the work that was done here.
MR. LEMING: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: So I'm sure there was a really huge balancing act for everybody on being good stewards of our environment but still being sensitive to the fact that this is our lifeblood. The federal government is our lifeblood in Oak Ridge. So I'm sure that continues today to a certain extent as well.
MR. LEMING: Oh, certainly it does, from the standpoint of that -
MR. MCDANIEL: 'Cause a new Wal-Mart's not going to replace a billion dollars of -
MR. LEMING: No.
MR. MCDANIEL: - federal money.
MR. LEMING: No, I could catch a lot of grief from the community development folks. I could catch a lot of grief from the extreme anti-nuclear group. But all in all I enjoyed working with all of them.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, to be honest, it probably wasn't a bad idea not to live in Oak Ridge, was it?
MR. LEMING: No, no. Actually, you got somebody looking after you most of the time.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughter] Yeah, that's true. I'm sure. All right, well, is there anything else you wanting to talk about?
MR. LEMING: No.
MR. MCDANIEL: Anything else you want to mention?
MR. LEMING: Not unless you've got another question or two.
MR. MCDANIEL: No, no. Well, I certainly appreciate you taking the time to talk with us. This is a unique topic, something I've not talked to anybody about, and I'm sure that's the reason that you're on our list of people to interview. It's kind of a different perspective sometimes.
MR. LEMING: Like you said, you interviewed Joe LaGrone. I had a great deal of respect for Joe and a lot of the other folks within DOE and the contractors.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure.
MR. LEMING: Now, we didn't always agree.
MR. MCDANIEL: I'm sure. I'm sure. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Leming. I appreciate it.
MR. LEMING: Well, it's Earl.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay, Earl. Thank you.
MR. LEMING: I'm still old enough. But thank you.
MR. MCDANIEL: Thank you. All right.
[End of Interview]

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ORAL HISTORY OF EARL LEMING
Interviewed by Keith McDaniel
January 20, 2012
MR. MCDANIEL: This is Keith McDaniel, and today is January the 20th, 2012, and I am speaking to Mr. Earl Leming. And we are at the TDEC [Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation] office here in Oak Ridge, on Emory Valley Road. Mr. Leming, thanks for taking time to speak to me.
MR. LEMING: It's my pleasure.
MR. MCDANIEL: First of all, why are we at the TDEC office?
MR. LEMING: Well, that's a long story in terms of - we were going to do it at home.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. And you've had some construction work.
MR. LEMING: Right. The hailstorms basically started a long process of replacing the roof, and as the roof was replaced, more damage was found. The windows were leaking, and then -
MR. MCDANIEL: It has just continued on, hasn't it?
MR. LEMING: It's continued on, and probably will into the spring.
MR. MCDANIEL: But we are here at this office because...?
MR. LEMING: This is basically the office that I set up or was responsible for working on.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, good. Well, we'll get to that here in a little bit there.
MR. LEMING: All right.
MR. MCDANIEL: But let's start out with where you were born and raised and something about your family.
MR. LEMING: I was born in Greene County, Tennessee, which is about 70 to 80 miles from Oak Ridge, in a farm. Basically born and raised on a farm. Educated in the Greeneville school systems through high school.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. Now, was your father a farmer, or did he do that part-time?
MR. LEMING: He was both a farmer and in the tobacco warehouse business.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. LEMING: And my mother was a nurse, and she was a baby nurse for years and years and years, and most of the newborns in her generation were - she was very responsible for them.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right? Is that right?
MR. LEMING: And I'm the last of seven siblings.
MR. MCDANIEL: Seven children.
MR. LEMING: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. And I guess you all worked on the farm, didn't you?
MR. LEMING: We all worked on the farm.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, you grew up in Greeneville, or in Greene County, I guess.
MR. LEMING: Right.
MR. MCDANIEL: Were you in Greene - I guess, you were out in the county a little bit.
MR. LEMING: Actually, we were in the county, but only about a mile from the town, downtown Greeneville.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. LEMING: So, it was a farm that was very close to town.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right, so you could walk into town easy enough, couldn't you?
MR. LEMING: Walk to town, walk from school.
MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, sure, sure. So, what year did you graduate high school?
MR. LEMING: 1957.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, graduated in 1957, the year I was born. [Laughter] So, you graduated high school in '57, from Greeneville High School?
MR. LEMING: Right.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. And did you go to college after that?
MR. LEMING: Went to Memphis State, which is now the University of Memphis, and chose it because it had flatlands rather than going to UT, which was hills.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughter] You had enough walking, didn't you? Walking up and down mountains and hills.
MR. LEMING: Also, I had a brother that had just graduated from med school there, so there was a draw.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, did all your other siblings go to college?
MR. LEMING: Some did and some didn't.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. So, you went to the University of Memphis, I guess.
MR. LEMING: Right.
MR. MCDANIEL: It's University of Memphis now. And what did you study? What were you interested in?
MR. LEMING: I basically started pre-med, but eventually moved into straight biology and microbiology, and basically that's what my two degrees were in.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right? Biology and microbiology, did you say?
MR. LEMING: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. What made you interested in that?
MR. LEMING: Essentially, I just had a knack for it.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, really?
MR. LEMING: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: One of those things where it was easy for you?
MR. LEMING: Grew up outdoors. As a kid, I spent a lot of time on the creeks and the rivers and the springs, so it was just natural.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, for those of us who may not know - I think most people would know what biology is, the study of biology, but what is the study of microbiology?
MR. LEMING: Microbiology was primarily looking at the bacteria, the protozoa, what was under the scope, so to speak.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, I see. I see. I see. So, you went there to the University of Memphis, and you got two degrees, did you say?
MR. LEMING: Mm-hmm.
MR. MCDANIEL: How long were you there?
MR. LEMING: I was in Memphis from - essentially started there in '57 and left there in 1968.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. All right. And did you get married while you were there, and start a family?
MR. LEMING: I got married, started a family, and essentially both my children were born in Memphis.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, when you graduated, now, did you get a job right away, and where was that?
MR. LEMING: That was just sort of by luck. I knocked on the door at the Memphis and Shelby County Health Department, and they needed an inspector. So they were hiring, and they offered the job, so I took it.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? So what did that job entail?
MR. LEMING: That was basically the first barbershop inspector for a health department.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. LEMING: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: So you'd go into a barbershop and inspect them -
MR. LEMING: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: - for the health purposes.
MR. LEMING: Right.
MR. MCDANIEL: What were some of the things that you found?
MR. LEMING: Well, some of the things you wouldn't want to find.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughter] I'm sure. I'm sure.
MR. LEMING: But it was basically the typical items of dirty linen, dirty neck brushes, and a lot more that you wouldn't want to talk about.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. Now, were there certain regulations and guidelines - I guess there were - set up for that?
MR. LEMING: They were very vague and not prescriptive, because in most cases barbershops weren't inspected by Health Departments.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, really?
MR. LEMING: They were under a separate program for the city and county, but not a part of the Health Department. So, there was another sort of a program development of developing an inspection program for barbershops.
MR. MCDANIEL: You probably weren't real popular in the barbershop, were you?
MR. LEMING: Not really.
MR. MCDANIEL: Did you ever have any trouble?
MR. LEMING: Maybe a few unhappy people from time to time, but in reality, like most folks, if you approach them right, they'll respond right.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. Now, how long did you keep that job?
MR. LEMING: Basically, probably less than a year, and moved on into the area of what was then a vague area of environment.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. That was in, what, the late '60s, I guess.
MR. LEMING: The late '60s. And that area's looking at - there were very few water-quality laws or air-pollution laws or solid-waste laws. So, I became sort of a technical specialist in that area for the Health Department.
MR. MCDANIEL: In Memphis.
MR. LEMING: Mm-hmm.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, was this the city or the county?
MR. LEMING: This was city and county.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, city and county.
MR. LEMING: It was unique in that their programs were more focused on public health type of activities, and environmental activities were sort of way down the list.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right, right. But about that time is when those things were starting to come along, weren't they?
MR. LEMING: Slowly starting to come along in the late '60s. Probably the Rachel Carson book, Silent Spring, was one of the things that helped to drive the environmental program. And then Memphis had its shares of problems in terms of, at that time, you didn't have sanitary landfills; you had dumps. And you didn't have sewage treatment; you had direct discharges to the Mississippi River.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, really? Okay.
MR. LEMING: And so the entire city of Memphis, for example, had no sewage treatment. It had -
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. LEMING: - basically direct lines.
MR. MCDANIEL: Discharge. Now, was that common? I mean, was sewage treatment common at that point in time in our history?
MR. LEMING: It was common from the standpoint of smaller streams. Essentially, the aspects that might - in terms of sewage treatment would've been common in terms of collecting and removing the solids and chlorinating the liquids, but beyond that point there was very little of it.
MR. MCDANIEL: And Memphis even then was a big city.
MR. LEMING: It was well over a half a million people. They had the Mississippi River, so dilution was the solution.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. Exactly. Exactly.
MR. LEMING: And there were some drivers, like the industrial discharges. Essentially, we worked on the fish kill. It extended all the way to New Orleans and basically developed in Memphis.
MR. MCDANIEL: Really?
MR. LEMING: The endrin pesticides were being manufactured there and discharged through the sewer lines and ended up in the fish flesh.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, my.
MR. LEMING: And then another probably fairly significant one was the Velsicol - again, the endrin waste that ended up in most of the landfills there in Memphis. There was a strong focus in Memphis on groundwater, though.
MR. MCDANIEL: There was?
MR. LEMING: Because Memphis essentially derived all of its potable water supply from groundwater, and still does today.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. Now, so how long did you stay in Memphis?
MR. LEMING: Was in Memphis until 1968 and then moved to Knoxville with the state.
MR. MCDANIEL: So you took a job in Knoxville in '68 with the state of Tennessee.
MR. LEMING: Mm-hmm.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. What was that position?
MR. LEMING: I was a biologist.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. LEMING: And essentially, we opened the first office in East Tennessee of two people, which covered all of East Tennessee.
MR. MCDANIEL: And what were some of the things that you did as a biologist for the state? What were the things that you did?
MR. LEMING: Typically a biologist was primarily looking at how healthy the streams were. I always sort of had a different approach because my master's degree focused on industrial discharges and sewage discharges, so not only as being - we had some real good biologists that could do more taxonomy, so I focused on basically walking the streams and finding point source discharges. And it wasn't difficult to find them.
MR. MCDANIEL: I'm sure it wasn't. I'm sure it wasn't. People didn't hide things back then like they do now, did they?
MR. LEMING: Well, basically that's the way you did things.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure, sure. And I'm sure you enjoyed that. I mean, you're a young man, and you grew up in the outdoors, and you got to spend time outdoors.
MR. LEMING: Right.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. Sure. So you lived in Knoxville. Where did you live in Knoxville?
MR. LEMING: Lived in Knoxville for about a year, then moved to Blount County, and basically lived pretty close to the same location ever since.
MR. MCDANIEL: Ever since. Ever since.
MR. LEMING: It's close to the water, near a little river.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. Now, how did you end up in Oak Ridge?
MR. LEMING: That's an interesting story.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, tell me that story.
MR. LEMING: Essentially, my first visit to Oak Ridge was probably in the late '60s or early '70s, and it was just as part of my job. And first visit to visit with the Department of Energy folk was to see what we could find out about the Oak Ridge Reservation. Didn't find out too much.
MR. MCDANIEL: What did they say to you?
MR. LEMING: Basically they said, "Thank you for coming."
MR. MCDANIEL: "But this is a federal -"
MR. LEMING: "This is a federal facility. Your boss in Nashville knows everything there is to know about it," and that was it.
MR. MCDANIEL: That was it?
MR. LEMING: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, how did that change? Or did it?
MR. LEMING: It didn't change for a number of years.
MR. MCDANIEL: Did it not?
MR. LEMING: No. Essentially, that was basically in the early '60s, and then starting basically in the '70s, we were obligated under the state laws to classify streams according to their uses. So, the streams on the Oak Ridge Reservation were a part of that stream-use classification requirement, and that's probably the next round of activities we had with the Department of Energy. And essentially, streams like the East Fork Poplar Creek were classified, and the Poplar Creek and the mountain valley streams.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. But they flowed out of the reservation.
MR. LEMING: But our approach, the state's approach, was that you went to the headwaters. And so, it didn't matter where they flowed to; it was where they flowed from, where you started, in terms of protecting that use. So, essentially, that put DOE on notice that their streams had a classified use, and we worked with them in terms of some uses because, essentially, most of their streams weren't suitable for public water supplies. But all of them were suitable for fish and aquatic life, and basically, some weren't suitable for recreation, but some were suitable for industrial use.
MR. MCDANIEL: What would've made them not suitable, specifically? From just the work from Oak Ridge?
MR. LEMING: Well, in most cases the approach was if you had a discharge below a sewage treatment plant, and then even though you had chlorination and all that, it wouldn't be suitable for swimming or recreational use. But it had to be protected for fish and aquatic life.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure, I understand. I understand. So, that kind of all started again in the '70s.
MR. LEMING: Right.
MR. MCDANIEL: It really started in the '70s, and the state of Tennessee coming in to evaluate, I suppose, the streams and rivers and things such as that, on the Oak Ridge Reservation.
MR. LEMING: Really didn't get to come in and evaluate them closely.
MR. MCDANIEL: Really? Okay.
MR. LEMING: Again, we still hadn't crossed that fence. The state was essentially on the outside looking in, and DOE was on the inside looking out.
MR. MCDANIEL: And that was kind of a political issue at that point, wasn't it?
MR. LEMING: It was more of a state/federal - the issue of sovereign immunity between state and local governments, and it wasn't just DOE. It was TVA. It was the Army. We saw it in a number of locations where we dealt with either TVA or the Army, in terms of their reservations up at Kingsport.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. I understand.
MR. LEMING: So it was just a part of -
MR. MCDANIEL: Part of the way it was. That was just -
MR. LEMING: Yeah, it was the way it was.
MR. MCDANIEL: - the way it was, yeah.
MR. LEMING: And that was basically a product of the war years and the post-war years, and it hadn't changed. So, as the laws became more specific, then the Clean Water Act started to develop in the '70s. Then that became more of an issue between states and federal facilities.
MR. MCDANIEL: So when did that change? I mean, when did that change?
MR. LEMING: It began to change, obviously, when DOE, through the mercury releases and the revelation of the mercury releases - and that was in the '70s. And the revelations that DOE, basically, held back information from both the public and from the regulators.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly.
MR. LEMING: And then the lawsuit between LEAF, a lawyer by the name of Gary Davis, who filed suit in federal court, and Judge Taylor in Knoxville - Judge Taylor made a very significant ruling that DOE was subject primarily to RCRA, the Resource Conservation Recovery Act. And that pretty well opened the door.
MR. MCDANIEL: Did it? What year was that, do you remember? Or about what year?
MR. LEMING: That would've been the -
MR. MCDANIEL: '80s?
MR. LEMING: - early '80s.
MR. MCDANIEL: Early '80s.
MR. LEMING: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right, right. So there was a lawsuit filed, and Judge Taylor, a federal judge in Knoxville, ruled that the DOE reservation here in Oak Ridge was subject to the - was it a federal law or a state law?
MR. LEMING: It was a federal law -
MR. MCDANIEL: Federal law.
MR. LEMING: - the Resource Conservation Recovery Act. And that was primarily dealing with hazardous-waste regulations. But that also pretty well opened the door on all the other state/federal relationships, because it set the precedent that DOE was subject to state and federal regulations other than self-regulation.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. So, at that point, once that happened, were you able to come in and have good access to the reservation?
MR. LEMING: We had access, but not good access. Again, when you have national security as an issue, and the need for security clearance that wasn't available.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure, I understand.
MR. LEMING: And so, you could get access for a certain amount of work.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. Certain places, you know -
MR. LEMING: You could go certain places. You could go to those wastewater treatment facilities that were well known and had been reviewed or permitted by the state, but you still couldn't get all the information you needed. You couldn't get in if they had a spill. It would take quite a while to get -
MR. MCDANIEL: As they say, an act of Congress for that to happen, wouldn't it?
MR. LEMING: You stood outside the gate for a long time.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. LEMING: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, once you were able to get into Oak Ridge and - I'm just asking. I don't have an axe to grind one way or the other. But once you were able to get into Oak Ridge - I suppose that this was after the information was released to the public that DOE had been - that there was a spill, and that they'd been holding information back from the public and from the regulators. And you came in and started doing inspections. Did you find anything else that was kind of unusual, or that came to the public eye?
MR. LEMING: Well, there were many, many things that came to the public eye, from the standpoint of issues that weren't what you would normally expect. For example, the S3 ponds at Y-12, which were essentially -
MR. MCDANIEL: Those were kind a holding ponds, right?
MR. LEMING: They were holding ponds. Right.
MR. MCDANIEL: For nuclear waste.
MR. LEMING: Not so much nuclear -
MR. MCDANIEL: Or chemical waste.
MR. LEMING: Chemical waste.
MR. MCDANIEL: Chemical waste, excuse me.
MR. LEMING: Right.
MR. MCDANIEL: And they had leached out, hadn't they?
MR. LEMING: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that what had happened?
MR. LEMING: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. Into the water -
MR. LEMING: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: - supply or the creeks, I suppose.
MR. LEMING: That's pretty well correct.
MR. MCDANIEL: And did you all find that, or is that something that just came that they just were forced to admit?
MR. LEMING: No. Basically it was obvious, but it wasn't on the list, so to speak.
MR. MCDANIEL: I understand.
MR. LEMING: And then issues like the - and in their landfills when they would have buried uranium chips that would ignite if they were exposed to air, and those were small air releases or major air releases. And so a lot of revelations, but it took many, many years to develop and identify all of those. And we didn't identify them all, and DOE and their contractors helped us identify them.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. I suppose they got - my understanding is, around the mid-'80s they kind of opened - DOE opened the door a little bit wider for transparency of those kinds of things. Is that an accurate statement?
MR. LEMING: In the mid-'80s, essentially I came back as a project coordinator, because DOE essentially had been identified as a major source in a lot of problems, and essentially it needed a lot more attention than each of our various regulatory divisions independently could give to it. So I had just spent two years in surface mining and came over as a project coordinator for the DOE project.
MR. MCDANIEL: I understand. Now, was that when this office was established?
MR. LEMING: No. No, essentially from '85 until '91 this office didn't exist.
MR. MCDANIEL: This office didn't exist.
MR. LEMING: And that was a period where I worked as sort of a focal point with DOE, and in the various regulatory divisions within the state, and sort of as a receiving point for all the paperwork that DOE and their contractors could put forth, which was mountains of it.
MR. MCDANIEL: I'm sure it was.
MR. LEMING: And I was, at that time, still at my offices in Knoxville.
MR. MCDANIEL: But you said from '85 to '91, did you say?
MR. LEMING: Mm-hmm.
MR. MCDANIEL: '85 to '91. Were they pretty open with things, or still kind of holding things -
MR. LEMING: No.
MR. MCDANIEL: - close to the vest?
MR. LEMING: Well, in most cases, they were becoming more open.
MR. MCDANIEL: They'd done certain things the same way for 40 years. It's a little hard to change, isn't it?
MR. LEMING: Yeah, you don't really - and I don't fault - it was, again, a way of life. So there were issues that we would identify, and it would take time to drag out the information. But I'd have to say, from the standpoint of management of DOE, we were getting a lot of good cooperation.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? Okay.
MR. LEMING: And from the standpoint of the contractors. But anything that was classified or - that was more difficult to get.
MR. MCDANIEL: Did they hide behind that classification sometimes?
MR. LEMING: In many cases, yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: In many cases, yes.
MR. LEMING: It was easier to put a mistake in a classified document than it was to report it.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure, exactly.
MR. LEMING: But to their credit, they began reporting a lot more stuff - problems like hydrofracture, which, basically, in the deep well injection of radioactive materials, they had developed a lot of problems with it, and made some several mistakes. It took a lot of digging from the standpoint of finding the real paperwork.
MR. MCDANIEL: I guess people thought if something was 1,000 feet under the ground -
MR. LEMING: It was safe.
MR. MCDANIEL: - it was safe.
MR. LEMING: Well, I think they did, too, from their standpoint, but they also knew that they had made some mistakes.
MR. MCDANIEL: Let me ask you a question, because in an interview I did a couple of years ago, a fella who was pretty familiar with hydrofracture, he made the comment: hydrofracture is going to be something that's going to bite them in the butt in about 30 or 35 years. Do you think that's an issue? Do you think it's still an issue, or you think most of that's been resolved?
MR. LEMING: It's still an issue from the standpoint we know that the liquids are still down there, because when they were put down, they weren't solidified.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. And for people that don't understand, hydrofracture is when, in my understanding - and you can correct me if I'm wrong, of course - but this waste, this liquid waste was mixed with concrete and then injected down into the plates of the earth -
MR. LEMING: Right.
MR. MCDANIEL: - as much as 1,000 feet down, and it kind of spread out, right?
MR. LEMING: Mm-hmm.
MR. MCDANIEL: And they thought that, well, the concrete would set up, and that would be it, right?
MR. LEMING: Right.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. LEMING: But unfortunately they breached that depth, and it came out at a much higher elevation than where they hoped it would go.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly. Exactly.
MR. LEMING: And so it will be something that they will have to continue to monitor and watch for, for many, many years.
MR. MCDANIEL: Exactly. But that was just one example of some of the things that -
MR. LEMING: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: I'm sure there are -
MR. LEMING: Well, you could go on with a long list, but I think you have to look at the positive side of it too.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right, exactly.
MR. LEMING: Between the '80s - or after '85, we began the process of characterization, sampling, and reporting. And interesting story about security clearance. I didn't have a security clearance, and so in most cases, I always had to have an escort to take me in. They were very good about getting me where I needed to go. But on one occasion, I was at K-25. I had one meeting with a group of people and then was scheduled with another meeting, but they didn't meet up together, so the first group had to put me out and put me back outside the gate and left me waiting there. The second group didn't show up, and it was probably about 30 degrees outside that gate.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, they left you out in the cold, literally. That was a metaphor for your life, for your relationship with -
MR. LEMING: Right.
MR. MCDANIEL: - DOE, wasn't it?
MR. LEMING: That brought about a strong push on my part for security clearance.
MR. MCDANIEL: Did that happen?
MR. LEMING: That happened.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, well, good.
MR. LEMING: And it was basically one of the fastest security clearances that they could still do.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. Now, when did that happen? Was that when - who was the general manager at that time? Who was ORO manager? Joe?
MR. LEMING: That would be Joe LaGrone.
MR. MCDANIEL: Joe LaGrone, right.
MR. LEMING: Joe LaGrone was - he was probably one of the most cooperative.
MR. MCDANIEL: I interviewed him, oh, three, four months ago, and he talked quite a bit about especially that period in the mid-'80s when he tried to open up and make it as transparent as possible.
MR. LEMING: He did, and I'll give him a great deal of credit for that effort.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure, exactly. So when was this office established in Oak Ridge?
MR. LEMING: Between '85 and '91 we essentially begin working with DOE, and a few things happened: the FBI raid on Rocky Flats, which again brought a lot of issues to DOE.
MR. MCDANIEL: Tell me just in a minute or two what - so if people don't know what that is, tell me what that was.
MR. LEMING: Essentially, that was the contractor not doing their job and failing to report problems both to DOE and to the state of Colorado, and essentially it was hiding information. So, the FBI just raided the facility and literally closed it down.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. LEMING: And that caused the DOE to start working on some type of agreement with Colorado, and that perked everybody's ears up, in terms of are there agreements out there and who's going to fund those agreements.
MR. MCDANIEL: Of course.
MR. LEMING: So, the agreements process started with practically all of those states that were host to DOE facilities, like Washington state, Colorado, New Mexico -
MR. MCDANIEL: New Mexico, right.
MR. LEMING: - South Carolina, Tennessee, Ohio. And so that's basically how we began the process of developing an oversight agreement, which took us about a year and a half to finally come up with an agreement. And this division itself was basically a multimedia division, which had components of all of the divisions in Nashville that regulated DOE.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right? I see.
MR. LEMING: So we had water quality. We had air pollution, radiological health, solid waste, hazardous waste.
MR. MCDANIEL: So this office opened as a result of that; is that correct?
MR. LEMING: Right.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. And who funded it? Was it funded by DOE?
MR. LEMING: It was funded by DOE out of three grants, and one was essentially the oversight agreement. The second was an agreement for CERCLA; that funded our CERCLA activities, our Superfund. And then the third was an agreement for emergency management to do emergency response, and we also included public participation in there for the local governments. And all that funding basically was handled through this office but went out - but it was -
MR. MCDANIEL: But it was funded to the state.
MR. LEMING: To the state.
MR. MCDANIEL: So the state could run this office, right?
MR. LEMING: Right, yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: So there would be some kind of separation.
MR. LEMING: Right.
MR. MCDANIEL: I mean, you wouldn't want the wolf watching the henhouse.
MR. LEMING: No. No, there was speculation, "How can you take funding from somebody you're watching?"
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right, I'm sure of that.
MR. LEMING: I just said -
MR. MCDANIEL: You'd say, "Pretty easy, as a matter of fact." [Laughter] So at this point, when this office was opened, what was your position?
MR. LEMING: I became Director.
MR. MCDANIEL: Director.
MR. LEMING: And it's the first office that was ever opened that had a director outside of Nashville.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, really? Okay.
MR. LEMING: Which is - I'll consider that as a unique recognition.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. Now, were there other sites in Tennessee that this office dealt with? Or was it just the Oak Ridge Reservation?
MR. LEMING: Just the Oak Ridge Reservation.
MR. MCDANIEL: Just the Oak Ridge Reservation.
MR. LEMING: Now, we did work with our sister divisions on offsite contamination by DOE, like the Witherspoon site over in Knoxville, where DOE had sold or released contaminated material, so anything offsite in the city of Oak Ridge we worked with.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. About when - we've heard a lot about the mercury, and we've heard a lot about the East Fork Poplar Creek. Did that all come about I guess in the late '70s when that Public Information Act -
MR. LEMING: Essentially it was the early '80s.
MR. MCDANIEL: Early '80s, right.
MR. LEMING: Yeah, it was basically when DOE basically revealed that they had released the mercury.
MR. MCDANIEL: And that was when they had the - as a result of that was when Senator Gore and Marilyn Lloyd, they held the hearings at AMSE, I suppose.
MR. LEMING: That's right, yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. That was quite the to-do, wasn't it?
MR. LEMING: Well, it was, except I missed it all.
MR. MCDANIEL: You did?
MR. LEMING: When the report of the mercury release came in, that was the day that I was reassigned to surface mining.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. LEMING: So, I had went to surface mining in all the period that involved the mercury release.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, really?
MR. LEMING: Yeah. I got the call. I received the call from DOE that they had released it, but then I didn't get to -
MR. MCDANIEL: You didn't get to follow up on that, did you?
MR. LEMING: No. So I didn't. I had my own troubles in surface mining.
MR. MCDANIEL: I'm sure. And you were still working out of the Knoxville office -
MR. LEMING: Right.
MR. MCDANIEL: - at that point. So in the '90s, you all opened this office. The state opened this office. That was funded through those three funding areas.
MR. LEMING: Right.
MR. MCDANIEL: And basically you had all the areas, like you said, all the areas you were monitoring.
MR. LEMING: Right.
MR. MCDANIEL: The water, the air - all those issues. So has that continued?
MR. LEMING: That's continued essentially through today. And the '90s were basically a period where, obviously, we had to create a staff, educate a staff. And with state salaries, that was a super challenge of recruiting talent that could compete and talk to the folks at the lab.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, yeah. You needed smart people.
MR. LEMING: I never considered myself an expert.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughter] Right. So when did you retire?
MR. LEMING: I retired in 2001.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, 2001.
MR. LEMING: So my history with dealing with DOE really runs from essentially the late '60s through 2001.
MR. MCDANIEL: So you had a lot of years. I mean, as you said, you dealt with DOE a lot of years, and you dealt with Oak Ridge for a long time as well.
MR. LEMING: Mm-hmm.
MR. MCDANIEL: Your personal impressions - I want to hear some of those. What do you personally think - as someone who saw all the issues, that saw all the changes, what's your kind of overall impression of Oak Ridge and the environment, from maybe some of the early days through today and kind of where you think things stand today?
MR. LEMING: Well, from the standpoint of Oak Ridge as a community, basically I have a great deal of respect for it and appreciation for it because when I first opened the office, I lived in Oak Ridge.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, did you?
MR. LEMING: For a short time. Then I remarried and moved right back on most of the same spot that -
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. LEMING: But I had great appreciation for the people that I worked with in Oak Ridge. Having come from dealing with surface mining, it was a lot more comfortable, pleasant job even though it was a challenging job. And I enjoyed the challenge, and I enjoyed seeing things change and making improvements. I guess you would characterize it as, as fast as a Cadillac in a Grindstone.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, exactly.
MR. LEMING: But working with the community of Oak Ridge and the public participation, I got to know the people very well. They didn't always agree with me; I didn't always agree with them. But I got a lot of good advice from them.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, you know - and I don't mean to interrupt you there, but I guess one of the things about Oak Ridge is that generally the public leaders, they were people from the plants. I mean, these were educated folks. These weren't - so they may have had a knowledge base that was unusual for especially public leadership in the city too. Would you agree with that?
MR. LEMING: I would agree with that from the standpoint - they had a great deal of dependence on Y-12 and the labs. And I'll give you one example of today, and that's the Oak Ridge sewage treatment plant. When you look at East Fork Poplar Creek, East Fork Poplar Creek before Y-12 was there was probably just a spring branch: very low flow and very little water, maybe a million or so gallons or less. In turn, the City of Oak Ridge sewage treatment plant also discharges into East Fork Poplar Creek. But then the water that comes into East Fork Poplar Creek down through the plant is basically an artificial level of water because it's pumped through. And that has caused interdependency between Y-12 and the City of Oak Ridge. Probably the City of Oak Ridge, if it weren't for the water that was being pumped through, would have to go to a very much higher level of treatment than it is today.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, because the more water, the less treatment required.
MR. LEMING: Right. And that was true even back in the days of the '70s, when both DOE and the City of Oak Ridge folks were complaining that "Don't be too strict on East Fork Poplar Creek, because that's the problem." But all in all, when you look back, you look back at - DOE wasn't much different than every other industry or Oak Ridge wasn't much different from any other municipality in the '50s, '60s, and '70s.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. It was an industrial town.
MR. LEMING: And they slowly had to be reeducated and brought into what we would call the regulatory world, and reeducated as to what good environmental protection meant to the community, how it benefited the community. And I believe that's basically how I would characterize Oak Ridge.
MR. MCDANIEL: And today, what do you think? I mean, are there still issues that need to be addressed? I mean, do you think things are pretty well under control?
MR. LEMING: Well, things are under control, but from the standpoint of looking in the long run, when you look at the Oak Ridge Reservation, you have to look at long-term stewardship and perpetual institutional controls, and you have to look at funding and who's going to be around here or who's going to be responsible. And when you cap a site and leave some contamination there, how do you make sure that, 100 years from now, or 50 years from now, or 25 years from now, somebody doesn't dig into that site? So those are the things that Oak Ridge is gonna have challenges on: how they move into the future and continue what I call the proper institutional controls and the maintenance of funding for those institutional controls.
MR. MCDANIEL: 'Cause no matter how hard you try, some things just can't be -
MR. LEMING: Right.
MR. MCDANIEL: - undone, can they?
MR. LEMING: No, and it's going to take full-time monitoring and surveillance. Unfortunately, somebody's going to have to do the work and pay for it.
MR. MCDANIEL: And pay for it, right. Exactly. Exactly. Well, good. Well, is there anything else you want to talk about? Anything?
MR. LEMING: No, I don't -
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, one other thing I wanted to ask you about. One of the things living in Oak Ridge - I've seen it, and other people have seen it, and you have it just about in every community - is, you have people who are very, very vocal environmental conservationists. Did you ever have - what were your issues with the local environmental contingent in the community?
MR. LEMING: Essentially, from the standpoint - when you're a regulator, you're in the middle, and you're going to take fire from both directions. And essentially, you look at it and you look at the regulations. You try to balance those regulations. You can't satisfy everybody. And if both of them are fussing at you, you've probably done a pretty good job.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughter] And a lot of times you don't satisfy anybody, do you?
MR. LEMING: No. But fortunately, in working with the extreme groups - again, they didn't always agree, but we certainly listened and we tried to satisfy their issues as well.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. Sure, I understand. But you don't think that it was any different in Oak Ridge than maybe it would've been any other place?
MR. LEMING: No, it wasn't. An example is, when I was doing Bumpass Cove Superfund site up near Erwin, those local people would like to beat me to death.
MR. MCDANIEL: I'm sure.
MR. LEMING: But a different type of community altogether.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. And they're still beating it to death up there, aren't they?
MR. LEMING: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughter] But different communities have different personalities, I suppose. And Oak Ridge was Oak Ridge because of the federal government, because of the work that was done here.
MR. LEMING: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: So I'm sure there was a really huge balancing act for everybody on being good stewards of our environment but still being sensitive to the fact that this is our lifeblood. The federal government is our lifeblood in Oak Ridge. So I'm sure that continues today to a certain extent as well.
MR. LEMING: Oh, certainly it does, from the standpoint of that -
MR. MCDANIEL: 'Cause a new Wal-Mart's not going to replace a billion dollars of -
MR. LEMING: No.
MR. MCDANIEL: - federal money.
MR. LEMING: No, I could catch a lot of grief from the community development folks. I could catch a lot of grief from the extreme anti-nuclear group. But all in all I enjoyed working with all of them.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, to be honest, it probably wasn't a bad idea not to live in Oak Ridge, was it?
MR. LEMING: No, no. Actually, you got somebody looking after you most of the time.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughter] Yeah, that's true. I'm sure. All right, well, is there anything else you wanting to talk about?
MR. LEMING: No.
MR. MCDANIEL: Anything else you want to mention?
MR. LEMING: Not unless you've got another question or two.
MR. MCDANIEL: No, no. Well, I certainly appreciate you taking the time to talk with us. This is a unique topic, something I've not talked to anybody about, and I'm sure that's the reason that you're on our list of people to interview. It's kind of a different perspective sometimes.
MR. LEMING: Like you said, you interviewed Joe LaGrone. I had a great deal of respect for Joe and a lot of the other folks within DOE and the contractors.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure.
MR. LEMING: Now, we didn't always agree.
MR. MCDANIEL: I'm sure. I'm sure. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Leming. I appreciate it.
MR. LEMING: Well, it's Earl.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay, Earl. Thank you.
MR. LEMING: I'm still old enough. But thank you.
MR. MCDANIEL: Thank you. All right.
[End of Interview]